BRIT MARLING

We put limitations on the way that we think about things, on ourselves, think about all the boxes we live in, male or female, you're this age, that age, this is your job, this is not your job, everything is about getting boxed in.

Modern life has gotten so strange, we all get 150 emails and text messages a day, and it's hard when things are moving that quickly to keep that sense of wonder about being alive.

I think we're always looking for an excuse to connect.

A whole film is just about arriving at a moment where you hopefully transfer some feeling to the audience.

I feel like I'm a much better person when I'm developing my imagination and my innocence and my vulnerability. I like that version of me better than the version where I'm just working on my analytical mind.

I always feel like the editing room is like coming into the kitchen. What kind of a meal do you make from there? It can be anything.

I didn't understand how you could be an actor if you didn't also study philosophy and study political science, astronomy. And also just go out and live life and have experiences.

So writing became a way to get to act in things that I thought were meaningful, and hopefully write stronger roles for other women.

I'm still a bit of a romantic and an idealist and hopelessly naive.

Science fiction has a way of letting you talk about where we are in the world and letting you be a bit of a pop philosopher without being didactic.

One of my favorite stories growing up was 'A Wrinkle in Time'. I loved that book.

When I'm sitting writing, I know that something works if I've made myself cry, or laugh, or have a visceral emotion.

You are the sum total of the choices you make every day.

Then in college, besides economics, I also majored in studio art and got involved in photography and making short films and acting. But I didn't know you could make a living that way.

I wasn't actually very naturally good at economics. My brain doesn't work very well, in terms of mathematics.

I've found myself at one in the morning just sitting at my desk spending an hour returning emails from the day until like two in the morning. It's ridiculous, I should be sleeping, or dreaming, or reading a novel.

The litmus test for whether I want to take on a role or not is usually fear. If I'm afraid of it, then I want to do it.

Life is beautiful because it doesn't last.

I think I realized very early on that you can spend a lot of time constructing a really perfect scene in final draft and just end up throwing it away because you didn't figure out that mathematics of the story first.

I think what's so attractive about acting is that you get to live several lifetimes in one.

Nothing seemed as scary as waking up at 40 and realizing that I had not lived a very courageous life.

As an actor, you have an accumulated knowledge base. But there's also something about it that every time you really feel like you're doing it for the first time; you have no idea whether you're capable of it.

Living in Cuba made me unafraid of whatever could happen to me.

Human beings are flawed and complicated and messy.

You know, I can't imagine 9 to 5 writing. That takes some stamina.